What are the best books on social media marketing?

I’d like some recommendations for books about socialmediamarketing. Specifically, best practices and examples of how companies are using sites like Facebook/Myspace/Twitter to build their businesses. Thanks

Deirdre answers:

I know that you are looking for books but if you are interested in a website that can give you all of this information then i found one while I was looking around for twitter guides. The website is a good foundation for social media marketing and gives you some good pointers and guidelines.

Where can I get good social media marketing help?

Need help doing socialmediamarketing!

Deirdre answers:

Great question. Social media requires a lot of attention and work. A company needs to be able to monitor and converse on Twitter and Facebook among the other 1500 sites. I can’t recommend any one site, but the one that was mentioned before Travel Spike seem to be the market experts. Of course, you are welcome to check out our website for more social media marketing help.

Daniel asks…

When it comes to social media marketing, can you suggest any tool that will be helpful in managing Twitter?

I am a novice in socialmediamarketing. I want to explore new things and your suggestions would really be great help. Thanks!!🙂

Deirdre answers:

With “HootSuite“, you can monitor keywords, manage multiple social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc as well as WordPress profiles, schedule messages, and more.

What are the differences between GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting and Basic Hosting Plans?

GoDaddy offers a specific WordPresshosting plan for a website and a basic hosting plan however, the basic plan offers an install of WordPress as an option. They both cost the same amount. I don’t want to put myself in the situation where I can’t switch back from WordPress if I don’t want to run a blog, but want to keep the hosting. Can someone explain the differences between the two plans?

Mary-Ellen answers:

I think they’re basically the same plan – more of a marketing tactic than anything. I’d go with the regular hosting plan, just to make sure you can easily install other types of software if you’d like.

Carol asks…

Which is the best WordPress hosting company?

I noticed that wordpress does provide a list of good providers but not british providers. Anyone know any good ones?http://NatashaObama.cn/top-100-hosting-domain.html

Mary-Ellen answers:

I use bluehost.com and hostgator.com and they work great. I have close to no downtime, and they have a single click install for WordPress blogs.

What does bounce rate at Google Analytics mean exactly and what is a good bounce rate?

Not exactly sure what Google means by bounce rate? I have a bouncerate of 1.08% on my website for the past year. Is that good or should it be higher? This is for 5467 visitors. What is bouncerate?

Deirdre answers:

Google’s Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who literally “bounce” off from your website — they land on it, and then immediately leave it.
If you only have a bounce rate of 1.08% that means that for every 100 people that visited your site just over 1 of them (1.08) didn’t look at any other pages on your site in that visit, the other 99 looked at at least 2 pages in a visit.
I have worked with websites for over 15 years now and know many website owners that would love to get a 1.08% bounce rate – my personal site for example gets about a 36% bounce rate so a little more than 1/3 of the people that visit the site only look at one page. Having said that many of my visitors land on information pages and then leave. ~ Deirdre

Laura asks…

Is the bounce rate in Google Analytics something to rely on for blogs?

Well. I’ve been using GoogleAnalytics for a while now, and figured out what bouncerate is. It’s the amount of visitors leaving the website as they have viewed the front page.

My blog keeps a steady visitor base, and it gets higher and higher for every day that goes, almost all comments are giving credits to me for writing a great blog. The blog originally was something for family and friends, but now the people who comment are almost always strangers which I never heard of.

But I have one problem, my bouncerate is very high. It goes up and up for every day, yet I get more and more visitors every day. So my question is if the bouncerate really is something to rely on? I mean, as I have a blog, many people just view the front page, and then they go away. I don’t know if the bouncerate is influenced by the average visiting time, and a lower visit time results in a higher bouncerate? In that case I obviously need to get better content.

But I’m not sure it is… Sorry if I were like asking the question weirdly, I’m a bit tired. Appreciating answers!🙂

Deirdre answers:

Bounce rate is not just for the homepage. It means that the visitor only came and visited 1 page of your site — any page of your site — and then left immediately.

How do you define “high bounce rate”? Bounce rate could mean that the visitor has already found what they were looking for in the page they visited, so they already left. Or it could mean that they did not like what they saw or did not find what they need so they left.

Look at other metrics of your site:

what is the average time on site? Are they staying too short or just enough

what is the rate of return vis-a-vis new visits? Are your visitors coming back or are they typically one visit and never to come back again?

what is the page per visit number? Are they looking at more than 1 pages in your site?

One problem with blogs is that they are harder to navigate, and difficulty in navigation is often a common cause of high bounce rates. Are the topics of your blog visible? Do you have a tag cloud that could at least help convey to users other topics of your blog? How many posts are in the homepage?

And of course, better content. Title your post properly — with the right keywords for SEO optimization — as well as allowing you to properly convey to users what the post is all about. High bounce rates can result from different expectations of the page — e.g. Your title of the post (which is what they see in the search engine results) is different from the actual content of the site resulting in users bouncing away immediately from your page.

Without seeing your blog, it’s harder to give more precise suggestions. But I hope this has helped! ~ Deirdre

What are SEO tips for getting a website ranked?

I’ve got a new website and I am promoting it the same normal way I always do which works.. eventually. I’m just curious what SEOtips (your best please) you have that I may not be aware of to get a website ranked high in the SERPs?

Mary-Ellen answers:

Backlinks, backlinks, backlinks! Lol. These are a +1 vote to your site/URL for every link you have which means Google thinks your link is worth more.

Of course you want fresh, newly updated content. Google loves new content and even has a specific search for it. Add content as often as possible!

Submit your content to bookmarking sites but you probably already know this since you are a seasoned Webmaster/SEOer.

Deep Linking is critical. Most webmasters don’t get this but naturally a website gets deep links to the URLs of content, not to the homepage. You need to make linkbacks to the content in your site.

SEO Friendly URLs are critical to high ranking.

You need the keywords/phrases in your title in order to rank high. Make sure they are part of your title!

Hope this helps!
Mary-Ellen

Susan asks…

Where to find the good SEO tips (Off Page optimization) in the internet?

Hi I am looking for best SEOtips for Off page optimization.
Thanks.

Mary-Ellen answers:

SEO Tips on how to get the best results from crawlers?

We have a simple website where we have:
1. Made sure we have good descriptions in meta description and keywords.
2. Created a descriptive title for each page.
3. Created descriptive alt= text.
Are there any other tips for ensuring we get the best attention from the crawlers?

Mary-Ellen answers:

Posting regular content to the site is the best way to ensure the crawlers come back for more. Also, increasing your PageRank through inbound links will also make the Googlebot happy.

Otherwise, you have done a great job.

Mary-Ellen

David asks…

Can anyone give me some SEO tips?

I know some but could use a little help!

Mary-Ellen answers:

To improve your site rankings, you need to focus on three things:

>keywords, keyword research
>content
>links

keyword research is the backbone of your organic SEO. If you choose and optimize for the wrong keywords, everything else suffers.

Here are some good keyword research, suggestion and discovery tools I use:

finally, links are super-important (both internal and external). Links are votes for your website, and the site with the most votes win the “election” search results. You need to get relevant, authority websites to link to your site. Best way to do that is by authoring great content. Also, practice aggressive inline linking throughout your website, like Wikipedia does. The are the kings of internal linking and kings of the search results.

Hope this helps you to understand what goes into good SEO and good rankings.

Why Should You Have A Custom Fan Page on Facebook?

A professionally designed Custom Fan Page – FBML (Facebook Markup Language) on Facebook can promote your existing online presence to millions of new clients and increase your bottom line. Let’s face it, every business could use more sales… and Facebook is the new wave of social networking! So every business, no matter how small, NEEDS to be a part of it!

So now ask yourself, “How can you afford NOT to have a custom fan page on Facebook?”

The new layout in Facebook makes your page content instantly SEO friendly, more organic and dynamic; helping to drive more traffic and sales to your website. We will work directly with you to gather the information you wish to promote about your business and utilizing graphics already present on your current website. Before you know it… you will have an eye-appealing custom built fan page on Facebook all set and ready for you to start connecting with new friends all over the world.

Having a professional build your custom fan page is worth every penny.

Most business owners do not have the extra time it takes to learn a new web application. Spending needless hours and stressing over the whole process… Why bother, we have simplified the whole puzzling process and we can save you the time and the stress, ultimately saving you MONEY in the long run!

Good Reasons to have a Custom Fan Page on Facebook?

Reach millions of new customers with one smart marketing tool that will drive more traffic to your existing website and increase your sales potential.

Promote new services or products easily with online campaigns and email alerts directed toward people who “LIKE” you.

All content is Search Engine Friendly and public to everyone on the internet.

Create custom tabs & extra pages for special offers, events or discounts or send bulk email to your followers in an instant.

A custom fan page creates a more professional atmosphere and give your business creditability.

No limitations on how many people can find and follow you!

Worry-free maintenance by having more multiple administrators to help with posting status updates and communication with followers.

So why not open the door to the fantastic opportunities awaiting you on Facebook – The Most Popular Social Media Network. Contact us to get the ball rolling down your new marketing avenue and let us build you a custom fan page!

Ever been curious how to create the Facebook fan page “Favorite Pages” profile box? After an exhaustive search across the internet looking for the answer, I came up empty. I kept finding posts that referred to the old Facebook layout with out-dated solutions. so begrudgingly I gave up and moved on.

But the next day, I found the answer completely by accident… and here’s what happened.

I was visiting a a really cool Facebook fan page and decided I wanted to save it so I could come back from time to time. I noticed a link underneath the profile photo, “Add to my Page’s Favorites”… the keyword here is “Page’s”. This link gives me the option to add this current fan page to MY business fan page’s favorite list (not to be confused with your personal profile favorite pages). Once clicked, a pop-up window opens with a list of my Facebook fan pages. So I select one of my Business Pages and Voila… when I return to my Fan Page, the “Favorite Pages” profile box was automatically there, no thinking required. Of course, you do need to have a Facebook Fan Page for this to occur (not just a personal profile)… otherwise the link “Add to my Page’s Favorites” will not exist.

Such a simple solution…

So now you ask why is a Facebook Fan Page so important.

The new layout in Facebook makes your fan page content instantly SEO friendly, more organic and dynamic; helping to drive more traffic and sales to your website. By adding “Favorite Pages” to your Facebook fan page profile box, you are creating back links. Back links are a crucial part of being search engine optimized as it gives your page content validity and importance; basically it increases your worth in the search engine rankings.

At MV Media Web Solutions, we will add all of our clients custom fan pages to our “Favorite Pages” profile box, helping to increase your visibility in search engine rankings. This is just an added benefit we offer when you purchase a Custom Facebook Fan Page package from us. Visit our Facebook Fan Page for more details…

Introductory Pricing on Facebook Fan Page for a
limited time, SO HURRY!

I am just recovering from the mind numbing experience of being at the Diva Toolbox International Conference Wednesday through Friday of this week! Marketing guru’s always talk about the WOW Factor, and this conference had the WOW WOW WOW Factor!

Janet Powers, the Chief Executive Diva of the Diva Toolbox, has really outdone herself for this first conference. She gathered some incredible speakers and they were asked not to sell their products but instead to give some real, insightful, and important tips for Women Entrepreneurs. They did that and so much more! There will be more to follow about each speaker in subsequent posts, please stay tuned.

This first Diva Toolbox International Conference was all about giving and forging lasting relationships with fellow entrepreneurs. The energy that was generated throughout these few days was awe inspiring and is a direct reflection of Janet’s love for and drive to reach out to women and lift them to greater heights.

All business women should consider attending the Diva Toolbox Conference in 2011!

Charity and Giving

There were three non-profits at the Diva Toolbox Conference. Each were represented by the most amazing & heart-warming women that are trying to make a difference in the lives of all women.

The friends of Mel Foundation was started in loving memory of Mel Simmons by Pauline Alighieri to continue her work. Mel had a talent for lifting the spirit of everyone she came in contact with, whether they were cancer patients or caregivers. The mission of Mel’s is to provide quality cancer care for the whole patient by funding cancer research, education and support. Their goal is to support creative and promising projects that impact patient care. Over $2 million has been given to programs that support their mission.

Because October is breast cancer month… MV Media will be donating a portion of all sales during the month of October to Friends of Mel. Please consider making a Donation to Friend’s of Mel!

A leading humanitarian organization that is fighting global poverty. Special focus is placed on working alongside poor women. Care feels that if these women are equipped with the proper resources, they have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty.

Their mission is to serve individuals and families in the poorest places of the world by promoting innovative solutions and advocating global responsibility. The work this organization does is amazing. MV Media will be donating a portion of all sales in the month of November to Care. Please visit www.Care.org and give generously.

This organization was started by Patricia Franchi Flaherty after her second diagnosis with ovarian cancer in 2006. Her mother succumbed to the disease in 1976. She wanted to start an organization whose sole purpose was to raise funds and awareness of ovarian cancer. It is dedicated to the relentless pursuit of finding a cure for ovarian cancer. Please check out www.Ovationsforthecure.org and donate, you never when someone you love could use their help.

MV Media will be donating a portion of all sales to Ovations for the month of December.

The Diva Toolbox Conference offers the opportunity to meet extraordinary women from all walks of business… definitely a must!